Chow last night with 17 co-workers, my only requirements were no chicken feet or drunken chicken (of which the major point seems to be gnawing the bones for delicious marrow.)
Of much interest is what the white boy would eat. No one would eat until I’d sampled whatever was placed in front of me, which greatly fucked with my OCD: I usually must pick through and identify all the bits before throwing anything down my gullet.
The only oddities included shark fin soup, which wasn’t bad — but somewhere between motor oil and wallpaper paste on the consistency scale. Next up: jellyfish, which didn’t have much taste per se. If you want the experience and the store’s fresh outta jellyfish, just do a rough chop on your sack (yeah, that one) and saute lightly in sesame oil.
The whole dinner consisted of about 10 courses, and was really quite delicious. I must say there’s some spectacular cuisine to be had here, including the “beef doughnuts” I had last Saturday night.
Tonight had Indian, as my colleague has some whacky dietary restrictions/superstition on Friday which I don’t pretend to understand. (Hell, Indians get superstitious about breathing.) We ended up in Wan Chai, where I learned that street numbers mean basically nothing. (In Japan, they’re numbered in the order in which they were built. Same here? F if I know.) The dal and dosa were delicious though!
Saturday tomorrow, which means a half day of work, since these people are masochist… I mean, SOOOO hard working. I can tell by the many MickeyD’s and KFC’s that given another decade Hong Kong will enjoy the same obese lethargy that makes America USA USA USA #1! Saturday will take it’s proper place: hang-over recovery day.
Oh, I found a relatively uncrowded supermarket today and picked up a few things. Smooth sailing until I wanted oatmeal — my choices included “drinkable” oatmeal or two flavors: chicken & mushroom or anchovy. I passed.